House Committee Proposes Strong Stand Vs. Arab Discriminations

July 14, 1961

WASHINGTON (Jul. 13)

The House Foreign Affairs Committee today wrote a much stronger anti-discrimination clause into the Mutual Security bill than that proposed this session by the Administration. Incorporated by the committee into the preamble of the new legislation were expressions against Arab boycott and blockade tactics and against discrimination affecting Americans of Jewish faith.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s version of the bill stands in sharp contrast to the measure pending before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the Senate, committee chairman J. W. Fulbright is seeking to eliminate even this year’s watered-down clause. The House Committee drew from previous legislation to phrase its stand against Arab bigotry, and added new language. The House version now states:

“It is the sense of the Congress, that inasmuch as 1. The United States favors freedom of navigation in international waterways and economic cooperation between nations; and 2. The purposes of this Act are negated and the peace of the world is endangered when nations which receive assistance under this Act wage economic warfare against other nations assisted under this Act, including such procedures as boycotts, blockades, and the restriction of the use of international waterways; and 3. Any attempts by foreign nations to create distinctions of their race or religion among American citizens in the granting of personal or commercial access or any other rights otherwise available to U. S. citizens generally is repugnant to our principles; assistance under this Act and the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended, shall be administered to give effect to these principles.”